by James Hayman
“That was more than twenty years ago.”
“People stay in touch.”
“Could you come up with a list of Orion employees who worked here at the same time Deirdre did?”
“My HR people could, but I don’t think it will help you.”
“Why not?”
“Deirdre was a rich and resourceful woman. If she wanted to find a contract killer, I think she could have managed it on her own without having to use any of her old Orion contacts. And she’s smart enough to know it would be strategically better to hire someone who couldn’t be linked to her time with the company or to her in any other way.”
“Even smart people sometimes make mistakes, so if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate the list anyway.”
“Fine. I’ll get it in the works today, but I still think you’re barking up the wrong tree. I knew Deirdre better than anyone, and while my sister could be willful, spiteful and frankly a royal pain in the ass, she wasn’t a killer. It just wasn’t her style.”
“Are you coming to Portland for the funerals?”
“Of course. Also to be with Julia. Naturally, she’s in total shock over everything that’s happened. If Edward ends up going to prison, and maybe even if he doesn’t, I expect Julia will most likely be coming to live with us here in D.C. My wife flew up this morning, and I’ll be joining her tonight. And now, Sergeant, I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me. I have another meeting starting in just a few minutes.”
Chapter 58
BY THE TIME McCabe got back to Reagan National, Tom Shockley’s face was peering down at him from every TV screen in the airport, alternating with file footage of Edward Whitby and still shots of Deirdre, Aimée and Byron Knowles. Obviously the Whitby murders had replaced the Syrian civil war as the major story de jour. On all three cable news networks it was all Whitby, all the time, most of it broadcast live from Portland.
After a brief search, McCabe managed to find a bar where the lone TV was tuned to a British soccer game. He went in and ordered a beer, taking refuge from the chief’s pontificating for the half hour he had to wait until his flight boarded.
A couple of hours later McCabe was back in Portland, pushing his way past a crush of reporters, TV cameras and news vans to gain entrance to 109. He found Maggie seated at the head of the conference room table, surrounded by piles of interview reports.
“How’d it go with McClure?” she asked.
“Says he didn’t give her any names and he doesn’t think she did it.”
“How surprising. Anything else?”
“Yeah. He’s sending us a list of people who worked at Orion the same time Deirdre did. That was twenty years ago, so they all should be old enough to have gray whiskers and chest hairs. We’ve just got to find out if any of them also have a leg wound. Anything happen here?”
“Quite a bit actually. Judge Nelson turned down Whitby’s bail request. Not because he thought Edward might fly the coop but because Burt convinced him that Whitby, given half a chance, was a definite suicide risk.” “Burt” was Assistant Attorney General Burt Lund, who’d been assigned to prosecute the murder case against Edward Whitby. “He’ll be arraigned this afternoon on one count of homicide for murdering his wife. Burt expects his lawyers will plead irresistible impulse. Also the board of directors of Whitby E&D met in emergency session this morning and appointed Robert W. Moseley interim CEO to serve until a permanent replacement can be found. And another thing, a white TrailBlazer with a number of bullet holes in it was found this morning in the parking lot at The Maine Mall. Whoever parked it there wiped it down for fingerprints and took his guns and rocket launcher with him. Car belonged to a Palmer Milliken lawyer named Murray Epstein, who we managed to contact in Santa Barbara, where he’s vacationing. He says he parked it in the long-term lot at the Jetport over a week ago.”
“Anything else?”
“Not much except a long list of people we know didn’t do it. Julia seems to be in total shock. Can’t eat. Can’t sleep. Barely able to talk. Doctor is keeping her heavily tranquilized.”
“Would Julia have had the money to hire someone to kill Aimée?”
“Yes and no. Both girls came into trust funds of a million bucks each on their eighteenth birthdays. However, Julia’s money is still sitting in an investment account at Moseley and Co. Even if she hired a killer on a buy-now-pay-later basis, I don’t think she would have been capable of pulling this off.”
“Where is she now?”
“At home. Her aunt, Dennis McClure’s wife, got there this morning and is staying with her.”
“Dammit.” McCabe slapped his hand on the table in frustration. “It’s got to have been Deirdre. She had the motive. She had the money. And according to her brother, she had the contacts, with or without his help. She also knew both Byron and Aimée would be on the island Thursday night and that they’d probably be together.”
“But her brother doesn’t think she did it.”
“That means absolutely nothing. Do we have her phone records and e-mails yet?”
“Came in this morning. The boys are going through them now. So far no calls, texts or other contacts that look even remotely suspicious. If she set this up, she either did it in person or got herself a disposable cell phone.”
“How about money? If she hired your friend with the rocket launcher, she probably had to pay him an up-front deposit. Probably cash. Let’s get a warrant to search her bank accounts and see if she withdrew any large amounts recently.”
“Somebody with Whitby money could easily have an untraceable account. Cayman Islands. Belize. Wherever.”
“I know. But what else can we do?”
“Beats me. I guess we just wait for the lab to get us preliminary DNA results.”
Chapter 59
BETWEEN MONDAY AND Thursday no new evidence emerged in the case, and the cable news stations turned their primary attention back to the Middle East. At three thirty Thursday afternoon, the fourth-floor elevator door slid open and Joe Pines, the DNA specialist at the state lab in Augusta, walked out. Pines was a small man, no more than five foot five, who wore large round glasses that gave him an owlish look.
“What are you doing here?” asked McCabe.
“I just got preliminary reads on all the samples you guys sent up. Terri told me to drive down and brief you on this in person.”
“Anything unexpected?”
“Yes.”
McCabe tapped Maggie on the shoulder, and the three of them went to the conference room and shut the door.
“All right, shoot. And please, Joe, try to keep it simple. Don’t go on about alleles and such.”
“Okay. We analyzed all the DNA collected from Aimée Whitby’s body at the autopsy. Aside from a lot of animal DNA coming from the dog, there were some additional significant findings. We analyzed DNA from human semen samples collected from her vagina. We’ve identified it as coming from the drowning victim Byron Knowles. No other semen. A rapist of course might have worn a condom. However, the DNA of the gray hair found on Aimée’s chest and some skin cells found under her nails turned out to be a match with the DNA collected in the blood sample at the end of Maggie’s driveway. In other words, the guy who shot Lucy McCorkle was also in close physical contact with Aimée Whitby.”
“So Aimée managed to scratch him?”
“Yes. Deeply enough to draw blood.”
“How about the samples taken from the apartment?”
“Here’s where it gets interesting,” said Pines.
“Go ahead.”
“As expected, most of the samples Jacoby collected in the apartment matched either Byron or Aimée. There were also a few random samples that may have come from the landlord or a previous tenant. However . . .”
Here Pines stopped for dramatic effect.
“However what?”
“Several of the samples turned out not to be random. We identified them as coming from a woman who is the daughter of the man who killed Lucy McCorkle. We
don’t know who she is, but we do know she’s his daughter.”
Maggie and McCabe stared at each other.
“His daughter? Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. Every daughter gets half of her DNA from her father. The daughter in this case has half the killer’s alleles. Sorry. You didn’t want me to use that word. The unidentified woman in the apartment is definitely the daughter of the killer.”
“Jesus Christ.” McCabe turned to Maggie. “Do y’think Deirdre would have asked her father to kill her stepdaughter?”
Maggie shrugged. “Guess it depends who her father is.”
“Have you had a chance to analyze DNA from Deirdre Whitby?” McCabe asked. “The woman who was killed by her husband on Saturday.”
“No,” said Pines. “Nobody put a rush on that one. Wouldn’t have had results this fast even if you had.”
“Well, let’s put a rush on it now.”
“I hope this is important,” said Pines. “You guys are pushing a lot of other requests further down the line.”
“Joe, please. Trust me. It is important.”
“Who do you suppose Deirdre’s father is?” asked Maggie.
“Let’s see if we can find out.”
McCabe called Dennis McClure’s cell phone. To his surprise, McClure answered.
“What do you want now, McCabe?”
“Did you and Deirdre have the same biological father?”
“I beg your pardon.”
“Did you and Deirdre have the same biological father?”
“Yes. She was my sister. We had the same father.”
“Where is he now?”
“Who?”
“Your father.”
There was a long sigh on the other end. “What kind of bullshit are you chasing now, McCabe? I mean, hasn’t this family suffered enough?”
“Please. It could be important.”
“Our father is dead. He died three years ago in an automobile accident in Cincinnati. That’s where Deirdre and I were brought up. You have any other personal requests, or can I go now?” McClure hung up anyway.
“Deirdre’s father didn’t do it,” said McCabe. “So whose frigging father did?”
“I just thought of something,” Maggie said.
Chapter 60
ON FRIDAY MORNING, exactly a week after Dean Scott’s dog, Ruthie, found Aimée Whitby near death in the brambles off the Loring Trail, McCabe looked up to find Maggie peering down at him, arms folded across her chest, a grim expression on her face.
“McCabe, we screwed up big-time.”
“What are you talking about?” He tossed the report he’d been reviewing onto his desk. The one that told him there were no DNA matches for the killer anywhere in either the state or federal databases. That, whoever he was, he’d never been made to submit a sample. Ditto for his daughter.
“You and me. You know, Portland’s hotshot supercops? We got this whole case wrong. From beginning to end, we got it wrong. And at least one person’s dead because of the stupid assumptions we made.”
“All right, Mag, maybe you better stop beating us up and tell me what you’re talking about.”
“Come with me and I’ll tell you in the car.”
She turned and headed for the elevator. McCabe grabbed his jacket and followed.
“Where are we going?”
“Westbrook.”
“What’s in Westbrook?”
“Intex Labs.”
They found an old unmarked Crown Vic in the downstairs garage. Maggie signed it out and slid into the driver’s seat. McCabe got in next to her.
“All right, start talking,” said McCabe as they pulled out onto Middle Street.
“You know how we assumed from the beginning that the killer’s primary target was Aimée? That Knowles was basically collateral damage?”
“A reasonable assumption, given the fact that the first Aimée was killed exactly the same way. Also given that the victim was the daughter of the richest man in the state and that Knowles was a relative nobody.”
“I agree. A very reasonable assumption. And a very logical trap. One which a sneaky bastard named Francis J. ‘Little Frannie’ Hogan, who I think I can prove is the real killer, set for us by mimicking the old murder, and which you and I, my dear Watson, bought into hook, line and sinker.”
“And this Little Frannie, whoever the hell he is, you’re saying he suckered us into thinking Aimée was the primary target . . .”
“ . . . when it was the ‘relative nobody’ all the time.”
“Okay, Sherlock, what exactly led you to this brilliant conclusion?”
“Actually, some variation of it occurred to me last week, but I dismissed it at the time. I went over to take a look at Aimée and Byron’s love nest on Hampshire Street, and I realized how easy it would have been for Gina to follow Byron to the place to get the goods on them. Once she did, she had an obvious motive for killing both of them.”
“Jealousy.”
“Jealousy. My problem was I couldn’t see how Gina, eight months pregnant, and too broke, and, I assumed, too distant from the world of professional killers could afford to hire a pro. So I put it out of my mind. Until yesterday, when Joe Pines delivered his news that the DNA found in the apartment came from the daughter of the killer.”
“And you figured out that Gina Knowles’s maiden name just happened to be Hogan?”
“Yep. It wasn’t even that hard. I just Googled Byron Knowles’s wedding announcement. Turns out Byron and Gina were married here in Portland, and the Press Herald carried the announcement. ‘Miss Gina Hogan, the youngest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Francis J. Hogan of Boston, Massachusetts,’ blah blah blah. The next step was obviously finding out exactly who Mr. Hogan was and what he did for a living. You remember my old pal John Bell?”
“Yeah. Detective who works homicide for the Boston PD? Helped us out on the Lucas Kane case.”
“Exactly. I called John and asked him if he knew anything about the father of the bride. Turns out that in his younger days, Mr. Hogan was an enforcer for the D Street Gang, one of the old Irish mobs operating in Southie. They specialized in extortion and loansharking, and Hogan was suspected of being responsible for at least ten murders over the years. Including the extermination of two leaders of a rival gang by . . . guess what? Blowing up their car with a rocket-propelled grenade.”
“While they were inside?”
“Indeed.”
“And this guy was never convicted?”
“Nope. Not even of stealing a newspaper. He had a reputation for being clever and for covering his tracks well. Never left any evidence or witnesses behind. At least no witnesses alive enough to testify.”
“How old is Hogan?”
“According to Bell he’s in his early sixties. Supposedly retired from what he used to call the insurance business about ten years ago. He moved out of Southie when the Irish gangs started falling apart and the Yuppies started moving in. Currently resides on Mussey Street in South Portland less than a mile from his loving daughter.”
“His motive being to get rid of an unfaithful son-in-law?”
“I guess. Since his daughter was adamantly opposed to divorce, looks like Daddy figured the best way to end a bad marriage was by doing what he did best.”
“Invoking the old till death do us part clause? Interesting. You think Gina was in on it?”
“I don’t know. She seemed genuinely horrified when she learned of the killings. On the other hand, she also told us she had no idea who Byron was having an affair with when she obviously did, so maybe she’s just a good liar.”
“How’d she find out?”
“My guess is she followed Byron to the Hampshire Street apartment, waited until she saw the lovers leaving, then entered the apartment herself. She either picked the lock or, more likely, made a duplicate of a key she found on Byron’s key ring. Once inside, she looked in the desk, found the old news stories and a screenplay he was writing, and read them. Maybe borr
owed them and made photocopies and then gave the photocopies to Daddy or at least told him about them in detail. We’re going to Intex today to ask Gina to provide us with fingerprints and a DNA sample, which will prove both that she was there and that her father was the killer. I’ve got a fingerprint kit and cheek swabs in my bag.”
“And if she refuses?”
“Judge Washburn just signed a warrant requiring Gina to provide both. If her DNA proves she’s the daughter of the guy who killed Aimée and Lucy, we’ve got him. I also convinced Byron’s landlord to lend me a key to the apartment. I’d like to see if Gina happens to have a duplicate on her own key ring.”
“Sounds like the only thing you don’t have is a way to find out if Gina was complicit in the killings or whether Hogan did them on his own.”
“Yeah.”
They drove in silence for a while. McCabe didn’t look happy.
“What’s the matter?” asked Maggie.
“If you’re right about Gina and Hogan and the rest of it—and I suspect you are—I feel even worse than I did before about planting the seeds in Whitby’s mind that led to him killing Deirdre.”
“No way you could have known where it would lead. You did what you thought was right at the time.”
“But it wasn’t right. I jumped in with both feet without thinking through the possibilities. In the end, all I did was provoke the murder of an innocent woman.”
“Nonsense. She provoked it herself.”
“Yeah maybe. Anyway, let’s not talk about it anymore.”
“Okay.”
“I’m surprised Gina’s back at work already.”
“So was I, but when I called the house, her mother answered. Said being at work helps Gina not think about the murders. Also said she’s already scheduled a lot of time off for maternity leave and doesn’t want to miss any more.”